HELP ME HELP MY RTC!!!

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DenaliXTC

Feeder Fish
Dec 10, 2007
3
0
0
NJ
Ok i bought my RTC on 11/16/07. I introduced him into the tank properly and he was doing fine. Hes been swimming by the top of the water for the past couple of days (hell swim to the top ,stop, sink down and before he hits the bottom do the same thing) , it seems as if he has small burns on his head and his tentacles are bloodshot. Today i got home from work and hes got this fuzz growing on him where those "burns" were. see the picture below, i tried to capture it as best i could. The rest of the fish in the tank are fine. What is wrong with my cat and how do i fix it?! Thanks in advance!

other info:

He is in the tank with a pictus cat, silver arowana, and a blood parrot. I do 5-10 gallon water changes weekly. The tank is 75 gallons. I feed him shrimp pellets and freeze dried krill. PH is 6.8 to 7

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Thats a fungus infection. You don't list any water peramitors so we can only guess why but the 'bloodshot' look to the feelers sounds a lot like ammonia burn to me. High ammonia/low O2 could also account for the unusual activity...

Normally baby RTC's stay close to the bottom of the tank and in hiding, if possible, most of the time the lights are on. They don't usually become active until the lights are off.

Without knowing EXACTLY what the problem is and why it's happening I'm hesitent to recomend any treatment other than bumping the temp up to 84 or so and adding a medicinal amount of salt to the water.

Run a full set of tests and let us know the results. We might be a bit more help with the extra information.
 
also try larger water changes..... I do 50% weekly.. Is he eating he looks really skinny..
 
I didnt realize i should be changing that much water. I figured i'd be taking too much bacteria out of the tank. Im going to get a new test kit today so i will post the results when i do that. He eats fine, but the last time i saw him eat was on the 11th, and he ate a lot - his belly got huge. Since then it seems like food doesn't interest him, even if i put it in his face.
 
Like Nick660 and wolf3101 said up temp, do a big water change, and add salt and then we can go from there...
 
Looks like saprolegnia fungus, this needs to be treated quickly as it is a killer. While the most common meds for it are formalin/malachite green formulations many cats, especially the family of pimlodeas are very sensitive to that mix. Try nitrofurazone or Binox. If unavailable locally you can order from someplace like www.bigalsonline.com
 
ok i had my LPS test my water. No ammonia was found, PH was 7 and there were small signs on nitrites, but the guy at the store said not enough to cause soemthing like this. He said to bathe the fish in the stuff called Bifuran+ so i guess ill try that. Any thoughts?
 
DenaliXTC;1347169; said:
ok i had my LPS test my water. No ammonia was found, PH was 7 and there were small signs on nitrites, but the guy at the store said not enough to cause soemthing like this. He said to bathe the fish in the stuff called Bifuran+ so i guess ill try that. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I've no experience with that med but it looks like it contains the nitrofurazone that Guppy recommended.
Even though the pollution levels are low I would still do frequent water changes.
Good luck with it, I hope it helps.
 
Bifuran is one of the nitrofurazone based meds
 
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